Quotes from Esme Weatherwax (Granny Weatherwax)

Granny suffered from robustly healthy teeth, which she considered a big drawback in a witch. She really envied Nanny Annaple, the witch over the mountain, who managed to lose all her teeth by the time she was twenty and had real crone-credibility. It meant you ate a lot of soup, but you also get a lot of respect. (ER)

‘If a thing’s worth doing, it’s worth doing badly,’ said Granny, fleeing into aphorisms, the last refuge of an adult under siege. (ER)

'... there's no male witches, only silly men' (ER)

Granny, meanwhile, was two streets away. She was also, by the standards of other people, lost. She would not see it like that. She knew where she was, it was just that everywhere else didn’t. (ER)

... her clients had money, which was useful, but they also paid in respect, and that was a rock-hard currency. (ER)

Granny had nothing against fortune-telling provided it was done badly by people with no talent for it. It was a different matter if people who ought to know better did it, though. She considered that the future was a frail enough thing at best, and if people looked at it hard they changed it. Granny had some quite complex theories about space and time and why they shouldn’t be tinkered with, but fortunately good fortune-tellers were rare and anyway people preferred bad fortune-tellers, who could be relied upon for the correct dose of uplift and optimism.Granny knew all about bad fortune-telling. It was harder than the real thing. You needed a good imagination. (ER)

Among the many things in the infinitely varied universe with which Granny did not hold was talking to dead people, who by all accounts had enough troubles of their own. (ER)

... she was aware that somewhere under her complicated strata of vests and petticoats there was some skin, that didn’t mean to say she approved of it. (ER)

Granny bit her lip. She was never quite certain about children, thinking of them – when she thought about them at all – as coming somewhere between animals and people. She understood babies. You put milk in one end and kept the other end as clean as possible. Adults were even easier, because they did the feeding and cleaning themselves. But in between was a world of experience that she had never really enquired about. (ER)

Granny had spent a lifetime bending recalcitrant creatures to her bidding and, while Esk was a surprisingly strong opponent, it was obvious that she would give in before the end of the paragraph. (ER)

'That’s the biggest part of doct’rin, really. Most people’ll get over most things if they put their minds to it, you just have to give them an interest. (ER)

'If you can’t learn to ride an elephant, you can at least learn to ride a horse.’‘What’s an elephant?’‘A kind of badger,’ said Granny. She hadn’t maintained forest-credibility for forty years by ever admitting ignorance. (ER)

'Foolish child. All you could tell was that he thought he was telling the truth. The world isn’t always as people see it.' (ER)

For the first time in her life Granny wondered whether there might be something important in all these books people were setting such store by these days, although she was opposed to books on strict moral grounds, since she had heard that many of them were written by dead people and therefore it stood to reason reading them would be as bad as necromancy. (ER)

'They say a little knowledge is a dangerous thing, but it is not one half so bad as a lot of ignorance.' (ER)

'City people are always worried about the future, it comes from eating unnatural food.' (ER)

'Men’s minds work different from ours, see. Their magic’s all numbers and angles and edges and what the stars are doing, as if that really mattered. It’s all power. It’s all-’ Granny paused, and dredged up her favourite word to describe all she despised in wizardry, ‘-jommetry.' (ER)

'It’s never happened before.’‘Lots of things have never happened before. We’re only born once.' (ER)

'I didn’t have white hair in those days,’ said Granny.‘Everything was a different colour in those days.’‘That’s true.’‘It didn’t rain so much in the summer time.’‘The sunsets were redder.’‘There were more old people. The world was full of them,’ said the wizard.‘Yes, I know. And now it’s full of young people. Funny, really. I mean, you’d expect it to be the other way round.' (ER)

'You’re wizards!’ she screamed. ‘Bloody well wizz!' (ER)

'Something comes,’she said.‘Can you tell by the pricking of your thumbs?’ said Magrat earnestly. Magrat had learned a lot about witchcraft from books.‘The pricking of my ears,’ said Granny. (WS)

'If I’d had to buy you, you wouldn’t be worth the price.' (WS)

It was one of the few sorrows of Granny Weatherwax’s life that, despite all her efforts, she’d arrived at the peak of her career with a complexion like a rosy apple and all her teeth. No amount of charms could persuade a wart to take root on her handsome if slightly equine features, and vast intakes of sugar only served to give her boundless energy. A wizard she’d consulted had explained it was on account of her having a metabolism, which at least allowed her to feel vaguely superior to Nanny Ogg, who she suspected had never even seen one. (WS)

Granny subsided into unaccustomed, trouble silence, and tried to listen to the prologue. The theatre worried her. It had a magic of its own, one that didn’t belong to her, one that wasn’t in her to control. It changed the world, and said things were otherwise than they were. And it was worse than that. It was magic that didn’t belong to magical people. It was commanded by ordinary people, who didn’t know the rules. They altered the world because it sounded better. (WS)

'Actors,’ said Granny, witheringly. ‘As if the world weren’t full of enough history without inventing more.' (WS)

‘Things that try to look like things often do look more like things than things. Well-known fact,’ said Granny. (WS)

Granny Weatherwax didn’t hold with looking at the future, but now she could feel the future looking at her.She didn’t like the expression at all. (WS)

Magrat knew she had lost. You always lost against Granny Weatherwax, the only interest was in seeing exactly how. (WS)

'We’re bound to be truthful,’ she said. ‘But there’s no call to be honest.' (WS)

‘Yes, yes,’ said Magrat. ‘Sorry.’‘Right,’ said Granny, slightly mollified. She’d never mastered the talent for apologising, but she appreciated it in other people. (WS)

Granny’s implicit belief that everything should get out of her way extended to other witches, very tall trees and, on occasion, mountains. (WS)

Modern,’ said Granny Weatherwax, with a sniff. ‘When I was a gel, we had a lump of wax and a couple of pins and had to be content. We had to make our own enchantment in them days.’‘Ah, well, we’ve all passed a lot of water since then,’ said Nanny Ogg sagely. (WS)

Magrat peered around timidly. Here and there on the moor were huge standing stones, their origins lost in time, which were said to lead mobile and private lives of their own. She shivered.‘What’s to be afraid of?’ she managed.‘Us,’ said Granny Weatherwax, smugly. (WS)

Granny Weatherwax was often angry. She considered it one of her strong points. Genuine anger is one of the world’s great creative forces. But you had to learn how to control it. That didn’t mean you let it trickle away. It meant you dammed it, carefully, let it develop a working head, let it drown whole valleys of the mind and then, just when the whole structure was about to collapse, opened a tiny pipeline at the base and let the iron-hard steam of wrath power the turbines of revenge. (WS)

'...what about this rule about not meddling?’ said Magrat.'Ah,’ said Nanny. She took the girl’s arm. ‘The thing is,’ she explained, ‘as you progress in the Craft, you’ll learn there is another rule. Esme’s obeyed it all her life.’‘And what’s that?’'When you break rules, break ‘em good and hard,’ said Nanny, and grinned a set of gums that were more menacing than teeth. (WS)

‘…. There’s nothing wrong with cackling. In moderation.’ (WS)

'By gor’, that’s a bloody enormous cat.’'It’s a lion,’ said Granny Weatherwax, looking at the stuffed head over the fireplace.‘Must’ve hit the wall at a hell of a speed, whatever it was,’ said Nanny Ogg.‘Someone killed it,’ said Granny Weatherwax, surveying the room.‘Should think so,’ said Nanny. ‘If I’d seen something like that eatin’ its way through the wall I’d of hit it myself with a poker.' (WA)

'And I don’t hold with all this giving things funny names so people don’t know what they’re eating,’ said Granny, determined to explore the drawbacks of international cookery to the full. ‘I like stuff that tells you plain what it is, like ... well ... Bubble and Squeak, or ... or...’‘Spotted Dick,’ said Nanny absently. (WA)

It was one of the weak spots of Granny Weatherwax’s otherwise well-developed character that she’d never bothered to get the hang of steering things. It was alien to her nature. She took the view that it was her job to move and the rest of the world to arrange itself so that she arrived at her destination. (WA)

… people are riddled with Doubt. It is the engine that drives them through their lives. It is the elastic band in the little model aeroplane of their soul, and they spend their time winding it up into knots. Early morning is the worst time – there’s that little moment of panic in case You have drifted away in the night and something else has moved in. This never happened to Granny Weatherwax. She went straight from fast asleep to instant operation on all six cylinders. She never needed to find herself because she always knew who was doing the looking. (WA)​Granny Weatherwax’s approach to foreign tongues was to repeat herself loudly and slowly. (WA)

'Baths is unhygienic,’ Granny declared. ‘You know I’ve never agreed with baths. Sittin’ around in your own dirt like that.' (WA)

It had taken many years under the tutelage of Granny Weatherwax for Magrat to learn that the common kitchen breadknife was better than the most ornate of magical knives. It could do all that the magical knife could do, plus you could also use it to cut bread. (WA)

Granny Weatherwax wouldn’t know what a pattern of quantum inevitability was if she found it eating her dinner. If you mentioned the words ‘paradigm of space-time’ to her she’d just say ‘What?’ But that didn’t mean she was ignorant. It just meant that she didn’t have truck with words, especially gibberish. (WA)

In the dim light she could see Granny’s face which seemed to be suggesting that if Magrat was at her wits’ end, it was a short stroll. (WA)

Magrat might always be trying to find herself, but Granny didn’t even understand the idea of the search. (WA)

'I don’t mind criticism,’ said Granny. ‘You know me. I’ve never been one to take offence at criticism. No-one could say I’m the sort to take offence at criticism -’‘Not twice, anyway,’ said Nanny. (WA)

'We're her godmothers,’said Granny.‘That’s right,’ said Nanny Ogg.‘We’ve got a wand too,’ said Magrat.‘But you hate godmothers, Mistress Weatherwax,’ said Mrs Gogol.‘We’re the other kind,’ said Granny. ‘We’re the kind that give people what they know they really need, not what we think they ought to want.' (WA)

'You always used to say I was wanton, when we was younger,’ said Nanny.Granny hesitated, caught momentarily off balance. Then she waved a hand irritably.‘You was, of course,’ she said dismissively. ‘But you never used magic for it, did you?’‘Din’t have to,’ said Nanny happily. ‘An off-the-shoulder dress did the trick most of the time.’‘Right off the shoulder and onto the grass, as I recall,’ said Granny. (WA)

'I know all about folk songs. Hah! You think you’re listenin’ to a nice song about…about cuckoos and fiddlers and nightingales and whatnot, and then it turns out to be about…about something else entirely,’ she added darkly. ‘You can’t trust folk songs. They always sneak up on you.' (WA)

Granny Weatherwax did not believe in atmospheres. She did not believe in psychic auras. Being a witch, she’d always thought, depended more on what you didn’t believe. (WA)

'Look,' said Magrat desperately, ‘why don’t I go by myself?’‘‘Cos you ain’t experienced at fairy godmothering,’ said Granny Weatherwax.This was too much even for Magrat’s generous soul.‘Well, nor are you,’ she said.‘That’s true,’ Granny conceded. ‘But the point is…the point is…the point is we’ve not been experienced for a lot longer than you.' (WA)

'Nothing wrong with being self-assertive,’ said Nanny. ‘Self-asserting’s what witching’s all about.’‘I never said there was anything wrong with it,’ said Granny. ‘I told her there was nothing wrong with it. You can be as self-assertive as you like, I said, just so long as you do what you’re told.' (WA)

'You’d have to go a long day’s journey to find someone basically nastier than Esme,’ said Nanny Ogg, ‘and this is me sayin’ it. She knows exactly what she is. She was born to be good and she don’t like it.' (WA)

'You can’t go around building a better world for people. Only people can build a better world. Otherwise it’s just a cage.' (WA)

‘He’s a frog,’ said Granny flatly.‘But only on the inside,’ said Lily.‘Inside’s where it counts,’ said Granny.‘Outside’s quite important, mind’ said Nanny. (WA)

'You can’t make things right by magic. You can only stop making them wrong.' (WA)

Granny looked at the rising sun poking through the mists.'Good and bad is tricky,’ she said. ‘I ain’t too certain about where people stand. P’rhaps what matters is which way you face.' (WA)

'You can’t make happiness ...’Granny Weatherwax stared at the distant city.‘All you can do,’ she said, ‘is make an ending.' (WA)

Nanny kicked her red boots together idly.‘Well, I suppose there’s no place like home,’ she said.‘No,’ said Granny Weatherwax, still looking thoughtful. ‘No. There’s a billion places like home. But only one of ‘em’s where you live.’‘So, we’re going back?’ said Magrat.‘Yes.’But they went the long way, and saw the elephant. (WA)

Other people would probably say: I wasn't myself. But Granny Weatherwax didn't have anyone else to be. (LL)​'I don’t hold with paddlin’ with the occult," said Granny firmly. ‘Once you start paddlin’ with the occult you start believing in spirits, and when you start believing in spirits you start believing in demons, and then before you know where you are you’re believing in gods. And then you’re in trouble.’‘But all them things exist,’ said Nanny Ogg.‘That’s no call to go around believing in them. It only encourages ‘em.' (LL)

'We taught her everything she knows,’ said Granny Weatherwax.‘Yeah,’ said Nanny Ogg, as they disappeared into the bracken. ‘D’you think ... maybe...?’‘What?’ ‘D’you think maybe we ought to have taught her everything we know?’‘It’d take too long.' (LL)

Granny Weatherwax seemed to generate a gyroscopic field – if you started out off-balance, she saw to it that you remained there. (LL)​'You haven’t got the morals of a cat, Gytha Ogg.’‘Now, Esme, you know that’s not true.’‘All right. You have got the morals of a cat, then.’‘That’s better.' (LL)

'You can't say "if this didn't happen then that​ would have happened" because you don't know​ everything that might have happened. You might think something'd be good, but for all you know it could have turned out horrible.' (LL)​'Personal’s not the same as important. People just think it is.' (LL)

'What don't die can't live. What don't live can't change. What don't change can't learn.' (LL)​'I just know where I am all the time,' said Granny.'Well? I know where I am, too.'​'No, you don't. You just happen to be present. That's not the same.' (LL)​'Animals can’t murder. Only us superior races can murder. That’s one of the things that sets us apart from animals.' (LL)

Granny nodded approvingly.‘That’s the way of it,’ she said. ‘It’s not what you’ve got that matters, it’s how you’ve got it.' (LL)

Granny Weatherwax personally disliked young Pewsey. She disliked all small children, which is why she got on with them so well. (LL)

'The price for being the best is always…having to be the best.' (LL)

'I had to learn. All my life. The hard way. And the hard way’s pretty hard, but not so hard as the easy way.' (LL)

'I have faith.'REALLY? IN WHAT PARTICULAR DEITY?'Oh, none of them.'THEN FAITH IN WHAT?'Just faith, you know. In general.' (Ma)​Looking into Granny's eyes was like looking into a mirror. What you saw looking back at you was yourself and there was no hiding-place. (Ma)​'It's only money.’‘Yes, but it’s only my money, not only your money,’ Nanny pointed out.‘We witches have always held everything in common, you know that,’ said Granny.‘Well, yes,’ said Nanny, and once again cut to the heart of the sociopolitical debate. ‘It’s easy to hold everything in common when no one’s got anything.' (Ma)

Granny Weatherwax was firmly against fiction. Life was hard enough without lies floating around and changing the way people thought. And because the theatre was fiction made flesh, she hated the theatre most of all. But that was it – hate was exactly the right word. Hate is a force of attraction. Hate is just love with its back turned. (Ma)

At home Granny Weatherwax slept with open windows and an unlocked door, secure in the knowledge that the Ramtops’ various creatures of the night would rather eat their own ears than break in. (Ma)

Granny looked out at the dull grey sky and the dying leaves and felt, amazingly enough, her sap rising. A day ago the future had looked aching and desolate, and now it looked full of surprises and terror and bad things happening to people ...If she had anything to do with it, anyway. (Ma)

'Gytha Ogg, you wouldn’t be a witch if you couldn’t jump to conclusions, right?’Nanny nodded. ‘Oh, yes.’ There was no shame in it. Sometimes there wasn’t time to do anything else but take a flying leap. Sometimes you had to trust to experience and intuition and general awareness and take a running jump. Nanny herself could clear quite a tall conclusion from a standing start. (Ma)

Granny Weatherwax had never heard of psychiatry and would have had no truck with it even if she had. There are some arts too black even for a witch. (Ma)

She was a good witch. That was her role in life. That was the burden she had to bear. Good and Evil were quite superfluous when you’d grown up with a highly developed sense of Right and Wrong. (Ma)

'I thought you didn’t like books,’ said Agnes.‘I don’t,’ said Granny, turning a page. ‘They can look you right in the face and still lie.' (Ma)

'You never have been very good at numbers, have you?’ said Granny. Now she drew a circle around the final figure.‘Oh, you know me, Esme’ said Nanny cheerfully. ‘I couldn’t subtract a fart from a plate of beans.' (Ma)

'Gytha, is there anything in the whole world you can’t make sound grubby?’‘Not found it yet, Esme,’ said Nanny brightly. (Ma)

'Walter might not know his right from his left, but he does know his right from his wrong.' (Ma)

A psychiatrist, dealing with a man who fears he is being followed by a large and terrible monster, will endeavour to convince him that monsters don't exist. Granny Weatherwax would simply give him a chair to stand on and a very heavy stick. (Ma)​'... if you do know Right from Wrong you can't choose Wrong. You just can't do it and live.' (Ma)

She gave a depreciating little chuckle. And if Nanny Ogg had been listening, she would have resolved as follows: that no maddened cackle from Black Aliss of infamous memory, no evil little giggle from some crazed vampyre whose morals were worse than his spelling, no side-splitting guffaw from the most inventive torturer, was quite so unnerving as a happy little chuckle from a Granny Weatherwax about to do what’s best. (Ma)

'... them as makes the endings don't get them...' (Ma)

'Never pick yourself a name you can’t scrub the floor in.' (Ma)

'Are you offering to teach me something?’‘Teach? No,’ said Granny. ‘Ain’t got the patience for teaching. But I might let you learn.' (Ma)

'Well, if it was a choice of wishing a child health, wealth and happiness, or Granny Weatherwax on her side, I know which I'd choose,' said Magrat. (CJ)

You had to choose. You might be right, you might be wrong but you had to choose. Knowing that the rightness or wrongness might never be clear or even that you were deciding between two sorts of wrong, that there was no right anywhere. And always, always you did it by yourself. You were the one there, on the edge, watching and listening. (CJ)

Everything was a test. Everything was a competition. Life put them in front of you every day. You watched yourself all the time. You had to make choices. You never got told which ones were right. Oh, some of the priests said you got given marks afterwards but what was the point of that? (CJ)

'... but that's what true faith would mean, y'see? Sacrificin' your own life, one day at a time, to the flame, declarin' the truth of it, workin' for it, breathin' the soul of it. That's religion. Anything else is just ... is just bein' nice. And a way of keepin' in touch with the neighbours.' (CJ)

‘But you read a lot of books, I’m thinking. Hard to have faith, ain’t it, when you’ve read too many books?' (CJ)

'There have to be rules, Mistress Weatherwax.’‘And what’s the first one that your Om requires, then?’‘That believers should worship no other god but Om,’ said Oats promptly.‘Oh yes? That’s gods for you. Very self-centred, as a rule.' (CJ)

'Bein' human means judgin’ all the time,’ said the voice behind him. ‘This and that, good and bad, making choices every day… that’s human.’‘And are you sure you make the right decisions?’‘No. But I do the best I can.’‘And hope for mercy, eh?’ A bony finger prodded him in the back.‘Mercy’s a fine thing, but judgin’ comes first. Otherwise you don’t know what you’re bein’ merciful about.' (CJ)

There’s no greys, only white that’s got grubby. I’m surprised you don’t know that. And sin, young man, is when you treat people as things. Including yourself. That’s what sin is.’‘It’s a lot more complicated than that -’‘No. It ain’t. When people say things are a lot more complicated than that, they means they’re getting worried that they won’t like the truth. People as things, that’s where it starts.' (CJ)

‘Many people find faith a great solace,’ he said. He wished he was one of them.‘Good.’‘Really? Somehow I thought you’d argue.’‘It’s not my place to tell ‘em what to believe, if they act decent.’‘But it’s not something that you feel drawn to, perhaps, in the darker hours?’‘No. I’ve already got a hot water bottle.' (CJ)

CHOOSE, he said. YOU ARE GOOD AT CHOOSING, I BELIEVE.‘Is there any advice you could be givin’ me?’ said Granny.CHOOSE RIGHT. (CJ)

She'd never, ever asked for anything in return. And the trouble with not asking for anything in return was that sometimes you didn’t get it. (CJ)

She’d always tried to face towards the light. But the harder you stared into the brightness the harsher it burned into you until at last, the temptation picked you up and bid you turn around to see how long, rich, strong and dark, streaming away behind you your shadow had become - (CJ)

'No one can be quiet like Esme. You can hardly hear yourself think for the silence.' (CJ)

Granny Weatherwax had a primal snore. It had never been tamed. No one had ever had to sleep next to it, to curb its wilder excesses by means of a kick, a prod in the small of the back or a pillow used as a bludgeon. (CJ)

'And to think I thought it was an allegorical creature,’ said the priest.‘Well? Even allegories have to live,’ said Granny Weatherwax. (CJ)

'The thing about witchcraft,’ said Mistress Weatherwax, ‘is that it’s not like school at all. First you get the test, and then afterwards you spend years findin’ out how you passed it. It’s a bit like life in that respect.' (WFM)

'We look to…the edges,’ said Mistress Weatherwax. ‘There’s a lot of edges, more than people know. Between life and death, this world and the next, night and day, right and wrong…an’ they need watchin’. We watch ‘em, we guard the sum of things. And we never ask for any reward. That’s important.' (WFM)

'Mrs Earwig tells her girls it’s about cosmic balances and stars and circles and colours and wands and…and toys, nothing but toys!’ She sniffed. ‘Oh, I daresay they’re all very well as decoration, somethin’ for show, but the start and finish, the start and finish, is helpin’ people when life is on the edge. Even people you don’t like. Stars is easy, people is hard.' (HFS)

'Learnin’ how not to do things is as hard as learning how to do them. Harder, maybe. There’d be a sight more frogs in this world if I didn’t know how not to turn people into them.' (HFS)

'Everything's got a story in it. Change the story, change the world.' (HFS)

'Things aren't important. People are.' (HFS)

'If you don't know when to be a human being, you don't know when to be a witch.' (HFS)

... it must be hard, being the best. You're not allowed to stop. You can only be beaten, and you're too proud ever to lose. Pride! You've turned it into a terrible strength, but it eats away at you. (HFS)

Granny could shave the skin off a second. (W)

... the leader the witches did not have was Granny Weatherwax. (W)

When all hope was gone, you called for Granny Weatherwax, because she was the best.And she always came. Always. But popular? No. Need is not the same as like. (W)

…if you were friendly to Granny Weatherwax she tested you to see how friendly you would stay. Everything about Granny Weatherwax was a test. (W)

‘Try not to shoot her, all right? It only makes her mad.' (W)

She was smiling, but with Granny Weatherwax that did not necessarily mean something nice was happening. (W)

... Granny Weatherwax doing Good is arguably more to be feared than any other witch doing Bad ... (PP)

Granny was an old-fashioned witch. She didn’t do good for people, she did right by them. But Nanny knew that people don’t always appreciate right. (SLF)

Granny Weatherwax was not an advertisement for witchcraft. Oh, she was one of the best at it, no doubt about that. At a certain kind, certainly. But a girl starting out in life might well say to herself, is this it? You worked hard and denied yourself things and what you got at the end of it was hard work and self-denial. (SLF)

Many people could say things in a cutting way, Nanny knew. But Granny Weatherwax could listen in a cutting a way. She could make something sound stupid just by hearing it. (SLF)

In Granny Weatherwax’s worldview there was no place for second place. You won, or you were a loser. There was nothing wrong with being a loser except for the fact that, of course, you weren’t the winner. Nanny had always pursued the policy of being a good loser. People liked you when you almost won, and bought you drinks, (SLF)

Knowing how bad you could be is a great encouragement to being good. (BOS)

The more you faced the light the brighter is grew, and one day for the brief respite that it brought you’d look over your shoulder. And you’d see how lovely and rich and dark and beguiling your shadow had become … (BOS)

She’d tried being alone with her thoughts once, but had never tried it again. It had been too dull. (BOS)

Granny Weatherwax was like the prow of a ship. Seas parted when she turned up. (SC)

​Granny Weatherwax was indeed here. And there. She was, in fact, and always would be, everywhere. (SC)

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